Chicago’s Office of Public Safety Administration aims for ‘last chance’ to survive budget cuts

The newly appointed chief of Chicago’s $166.8 million-a-year Office of Public Safety Administration tried Wednesday to seize what a powerful mayoral ally called her “last chance” to justify the existence of a department that has not lived up to its cost-cutting promise.

Era Patterson did her best, but the news she delivered to the City Council during mid-year budget hearings was not what skeptical alderpersons wanted to hear.

The Office of Public Safety Administration is still struggling to reduce the medical rolls needed to reduce soaring police and fire overtime, in part because there is only one city doctor assigned to decide who is and isn’t qualified to return to work.

EY Consulting, formerly known as the accounting firm of Ernst & Young, is now finalizing an audit of the medical division that is expected to chart a path forward to help solve a vexing problem that Patteson called “one of the biggest challenges we face.”

“If a doctor clears someone with a hand injury to come back to work, we have to make sure that police officer can actually handle their gun appropriately so they don’t cause any more of a threat or harm when we’re asking them to fulfill their duties,” Patterson said.

Shortly after taking office, then Mayor Lori Lightfoot created the Office of Public Safety Administration to pare down administrative costs and get more police officers back on the street. Six years later, the office remains a political pinata.

Earlier this week, Northwest Side Ald. Samantha Nugent (39th) went so far as to suggest that the department Patterson has led since July be abolished as part of the cost-cutting desperately needed to help reduce City Hall’s looming $1.12 billion shortfall.

Budget Chair Jason Ervin (28th) openly referred to that frustration even after Patterson used her opening statement to outline the cost-cutting that her department has already done to streamline the hiring process and improve technology to reduce paperwork and maximize first-responder performance.

“It’s incumbent on the department to show us it needs to exist and show us tangible ways our citizens can see,” Ervin said. “You’re probably the last shot this department will have” to survive.

Alderpeople also found out that a sequel to the ShotSpotter gunshot technology abruptly terminated by Mayor Brandon Johnson may not be negotiated, fully-tested and functional until 2027 even though a replacement contractor is expected to be recommended this fall.

“I don’t think that’s what we wanted to hear. That’s a little disheartening…It’s a little baffling,” Ervin said.

Johnson abruptly canceled the ShotSpotter contract after condemning the technology that relies on acoustic sensors designed to pick up gunfire as a “walkie-talking on a pole” and a waste of taxpayer dollars.

The decision delighted the mayor’s progressive supporters who have long viewed ShotSpotter as a surveillance tool that leads to over-policing in Black and Brown communities.

But Johnson announced his decision just days before the contract was to expire, then scrambled to negotiate a costly extension through the historically violent summer months and the Democratic National Convention.

The City Council tried twice to force the mayor to keep the gunshot detection technology, but Johnson ignored both votes. The mayor has argued that he alone has contracting authority and that his executive order cannot be snatched away by the legislative branch, or reassigned by the Council to Police Supt. Larry Snelling.

Patterson disclosed Wednesday that the competition includes ShotSpotter and is expected to produce a final recommendation this fall. But she acknowledged that it is likely to take until 2027 before a new system is in place.

“It has taken upwards of 18 months to negotiate these type of highly technical contracts,” she said.

After voicing his frustration, Ervin told Patterson she “did a good job” in justifying her department’s existence. Finance Chair Pat Dowell (3rd) called Patterson’s candor a “breath of fresh air.”

Council members also learned that a $70 million computer-aided dispatch system — the “interactive tool” that allows 911 call takers to get first responders to emergency scenes costs $6 million a year to maintain, and is two years behind schedule.

When it was Fire Commissioner Annette Nance-Holt’s turn to testify, Ald. Debra Silverstein (50th) used the opportunity to demand an ambulance for her Far North Side firehouse. It’s the only firehouse in the city without one.